The Lands of the Saracen eBook

In descending from Eden to the sea-coast, we were
obliged to cross the great gorge of which I spoke.
Further down, its sides are less steep, and clothed
even to the very bottom with magnificent orchards of
mulberry, fig, olive, orange, and pomegranate trees.
We were three hours in reaching the opposite side,
although the breadth across the top is not more than
a mile. The path was exceedingly perilous; we
walked down, leading our horses, and once were obliged
to unload our mules to get them past a tree, which
would have forced them off the brink of a chasm several
hundred feet deep. The view from the bottom was
wonderful. We were shut in by steeps of foliage
and blossoms from two to three thousand feet high,
broken by crags of white marble, and towering almost
precipitously to the very clouds. I doubt if
Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges
of Typee. After reaching the other side, we had
still a journey of eight hours to the sea, through
a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.

Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making
a forced march we reached it in a day, travelling
along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil, the ancient
Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce
the celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the Jebelee,
or “mountain” tobacco, which is even superior
to the Latakiyeh.

Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant.
The latter tree bears the finest fruit in all the
Levant, and might drive all other oils out of the
market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the
country is badly prepared, rancid from the skins in
which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import from
France and Italy in preference to using it. In
the bottoms near the sea, I saw several fields of
the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I had supposed
was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific.
There would be no end to the wealth of Syria were
the country in proper hands.

Chapter XIII.

Pipes and Coffee.

—­“the kind nymph to Bacchus
born By Morpheus’ daughter, she that seems
Gifted upon her natal morn By him with fire, by
her with dreams—­ Nicotia, dearer to the
Muse Than all the grape’s bewildering juice.”
Lowell.

In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and
the coffee-cup are indispensable accessories.
There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or Persian—­unless
he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity—­but
breathes his daily incense to the milder Bacchus of
the moderns. The custom has become so thoroughly
naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget
its comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder
that no mention is made of the pipe in the Arabian
Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that
it is difficult for us to imagine a time when it never
existed. It has become a part of that supreme
patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong
a contrast to the over-active life of the New World—­the
enjoyment of which no one can taste, to whom the pipe
is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I solemnly
declare unto you, that he who travels through the East
without smoking, does not know the East.